Guns kept at home are hurting US kids

LOADED guns left where kids can reach them may be contributing to the high level of firearms injuries to children in the US. A study this week reveals the number of such injuries is 30 per cent higher than thought.

Figures gathered from emergency rooms across the US show that around 20,000 children are injured by firearms each year – higher than earlier estimates. A further 900 incidents are fatal, says Saranya Srinivasan, a paediatrician at the Children’s Hospital in Boston and co-author of the study.

The level of gun crime in the US has been falling in recent years, but firearms injuries involving children are not necessarily the result of criminal activity, says Srinivasan. For instance, 37 per cent of the children recorded in the study were hurt unintentionally. “These injuries likely could have been prevented with more careful firearm storage within the home,” she says.

Some 30 million American children live in homes where there is at least one firearm. “It is important to remember that there are things we can do to prevent children from being injured with a firearm, including making sure the gun is stored unloaded and locked in a secure container,” says Linda Degutis, director of the US government’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

“The safest place for a child is a home without a gun,” says Robert Sege, a paediatrician at the Boston University School of Medicine. “But if you need one, have it locked up.”

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